Charlie Davis and the Kick in the Head
by bisexualcharliedavis
Summary: Whumptober Day 4: Gun Point Charlie gets shot in the head, and wakes up in the company of an old friend. Part of Charlie Davis and the Big Sleep 'verse.


A/N: I'm still so far behind...But i'm making strides! Today: revisiting my Fallout crossover, this time we play with the beginning of Fallout: New Vegas. If you know anything about NV, I imagine it's that we start by getting shot in the head. So that's where we meet Charlie this fine October afternoon. Warnings for drug use.

When he opened his eyes, the only thing in his field of vision was a ceiling fan, spinning in lazy circles above his head pushing the occasional gust of cold air into his face. He didn't move, he just enjoyed the soft noise of the fan and the stillness of the world around him. He hadn't felt any stillness since 2259, and that was two hundred years ago.

The rest of his feelings came back to him in pieces. His feet, still attached and working. His legs. His hips, chest, and shoulders. Hands and fingers, attached to a set of arms. His jaw, which he could work around in a circle, and then his eyes. Lastly, shooting pain in his head. He reached up with one hand and found a damp bandage on his forehead. The blood had bled out the other side and was blue brown on his fingertips. He wasn't surprised. He knew that they had replaced his blood with something in the vault to make his feezing more viable. It seemed though that his body was producing more blood; as bodies were want to do. It comforted him to know that someday there would be no trace of vault A 111 left on him.

"Ah, you're awake." Said a voice, just on the verge of familiar. Gravelly, like a ghoul, but distinctly Australian and...Familiar somehow. But that wasn't unusual. He often found himself faced with people he almost knew; it was probably a response to his wanting to be reunited with his family, who he couldn't find, and looking for sameness in a world apart from his home. "Don't move too fast." They warned him, "You just got shot in the head."

"In the head?" He asked, turning his face to the side and being able to see only a Vault-Tec issue labcoat over a three-piece suit. Doctor Harvey, last he'd seen her a few months ago (the only person he knew who made herself into a ghoul) had one just like it.

"Mm. Lucky their aim was off or you might have lost an eye."

Charlie had pulled his knees up, and now sat in the bed, or to be more accurate, cot. A military cot, so he wasn't exactly being kept in the lap of luxury. Now he'd noticed, the small of his back was aching. He wanted his bed in Bad Luck City, above Jean's little clothes store. Sure, it was small and lumpy, and he had to share the space with Jean and her assistant, but it was his bed.

"It'd be a first." He responded, grimly. As far as he knew, Danny had never missed a shot in his life. When they were back in the old days, he used to think it was uncanny the way the man could hit five targets to his two. He just had The Knack. Maybe Danny had meant for him to live, then. The thought lifted the weight off his chest slightly. If Danny hadn't meant to kill him, it meant there was still good in him. Maybe he could even be reasoned with.

"I had to go rooting around inside your head to get all the bits of lead out. Whatever you did to them must have been pretty bad, since you got shot and buried alive." The man, the Doctor, handed him a Reflector. "Why don't you let me know how I did."

Oh, there was the weight again. Buried alive. Danny had been trying to kill him after all.

He looked down at the grimy pre-war tech he was given. He'd never used one before, just mirrors. He unwrapped the bandage to survey the damage. A dark, bloody open wound just above his left eyebrow, which now seemed to be fixed in the up position. He couldn't tell if that was what he used to look like or not. Nothing seemed glaringly disproportionate, so he passed the Reflector back.

"Looks fine." He lied.

"That's good. Your face was a bloody mess when they brought you in. I thought with all the time that's past I might have forgotten the finer points."

"Time?"

"Two hundred years." He said, and Charlie finally got a good look at his face. It seemed the face blindness extended to people other than himself. He wouldn't know this doctor from Adam but from two hundred years ago? He tried to think of the doctors he knew two hundred years ago, but the only people he could picture were Danny and Mrs. Blake.

A jolt of fear ran through him suddenly, and he felt like he was still lying half in a creek bed, while Brotherhood of Steel members destroyed the farm he'd been helping around him. Jean wanted to set up more farms, and Charlie was in good physical standing, so he often found himself undertaking these kinds of jobs. He didn't mind so much, manual labor kept his mind off of the things he didn't care to remember or think about.

There was a man above him, wearing power amour, stronger and bigger than any man could ever be, leveling his weapon at him. Their eyes met, and Charlie knew him. Danny. He might have said something. He can't remember. He does remember Danny not even moving, hardly even flinching, and saying

"It's not your fault, Charlie. The game was rigged from the start."

Then the ceiling fan, spinning above in him slow, lazy circles. The same one he was looking at now. He broke his eyes away to look at the ghoul doctor. His eyes were white, including the pupils. Unlike Jean, he had no hair. He had a strong jaw though, and thin lips pursed into a line. His forehead was drawn up in concern.

"Charlie?"

"Sorry. I was just thinking." He said and realized he was lying down, and a hand was resting on his chest.

"You don't recognize me, do you?"

"No. I'm sorry."

"Face blindness is to be expected." The ghoul assured him. "I'm Lucien Blake. Do you remember me?"

Charlie stared at him, trying to put the pieces together. Try as he might, they wouldn't stick. This could be Lucien Blake, or it could be no one.

"Why aren't you with Jean?" He asked, in an accusatory tone. This backfires on him when Blake's face goes through a series of hundred emotions in a few seconds. Then nothing, for minutes. Charlie begins to fiddle with the padlock on his pipboy, if just for a slight distraction from the now heavy atmosphere of the room.

He didn't know what was going through Blake's mind. Maybe he should have eased him into something like that, he thought. After all: he probably had two hundred and fifty years of memories up there, who knew what he'd gone through. Things that seemed fairly recent to him, like the Mei Lin debacle must seem a lifetime ago to him.

He wondered if there was a reason Blake hadn't gone back. A painful break up maybe? One he was dredging up without even thinking.

If this was Blake after all. He must be on some good Med X right about now to not be freaking the fuck out. Should he mention that Davis's are predisposed to addiction and he should abstain from any in the future? He looked down at the blanket over his lap, the threads swimming about in front of his eyes when he tried to focus.

He looked back at Blake, trying to remember what he used to look like. In all his memories, his face is there, but he can't pick the details apart from one another. But the voice...The voice was Blake. It had to be. He couldn't stand the alternative. The silence is as loud as they were speaking, and it creaks under their combined weight.

"Jeannie's...Alive?" He asks, very softly, after a long time.

"Yeah. At Bad Luck City." One of his eyes has begun to cry, Charlie thinks that both of them might have wanted too but he only has one tear duct left.

"Bad Luck City." Blake says, "Is that a real city now?"

"Um... I guess so."

"Is she happy?"

"She doesn't seem not-happy." He said, "She's got a dress shop, trying her hand at politics."

"Good. That's good." He said and produced a yellowed handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his face. Clumps of brown skin came away as well, but he didn't flinch. Charlie wasn't a ghoul and doubted he carried the ghoul gene, but he didn't know how they could handle decomposing so effortlessly.

Suddenly, and out of his control, Charlie jolted forward and cried out. It felt like something was clawing at his brain through the gaping hole in his forehead. Blake reacted. He picked up a syringe of Med X from the table and stuck him with it. He tensed up, feeling the pressure in his head only increase for several moments before his whole body was flooded with warm relief. His whole body relaxed, and he dropped down onto the bed, feeling like he was in a dreamy state.

"I don't like drugs." He said, but it came out slurred and wonky.

"I remember," Blake assured him, putting a piece of cotton on his arm to blot the small bead of blood that welled up from the mark. 'But you need them now."

"Oh. Okay." He mumbled, his eyes feeling very, very heavy. "You need to go to Bad Luck City."

"Do I?"

"Jean's there. 'S not right, for you to not be together…"

"Thank you for the vote of confidence, Charlie. But I think I should stay here."

"Why?"

"If she's happy -"

"She won't be happy. Not without you." He said, "You need...To go home." He saw a slight smile on Blake's face, his teeth were yellowed and decaying. Under the smell of clean clothes, he smells like death. Charlie is mostly surrounded by ghouls these days, sometimes he forgets to notice it.

"I think maybe we all do." He said, softly. Charlie is asleep before he can respond.


End file.
